Results tagged “GPS” from East Asia 2017

Had a bit of a broken night's sleep on account of not being able to breathe.

At 6:20 the alarm went off to wake up.

Arrival in Incheon was pretty boring. I missed coming under the bridge, but then we docked at a new terminal area in the middle of nowhere (they haven't even built the terminal yet). Downloaded the GPS log since Busan.

Had some breakfast at Kings Court around 8:00.

At 8:45 we went into the Royal Court Theatre to check in to our tour. Where we then had to wait and wait and wait. This time the Korean immigrations had setup laptops in the Queens Room to process everyone. So we had to collect our passports, walk past the temperature sensor, then get our passports stamped. Then we dropped off our passports and got a shore card. They had a truck setup outside with a portable gangway, but it was *very* steep getting up it. We could have really just gone straight off the ship onto the wharf, rather than up and over, but apparently the tides change quite a lot and they were going to have to rearrange things during the day. It was after 10:00 before our coach left the wharf.

So then it was the really long drive into Seoul.

Our first stop was the National Museum. We lasted about five minutes with the crowds and our tour guide before we went off and wandered the place on our own. Sure we probably missed out on hearing about some things in more detail, but we did get a nice long look at all the celadon (a green glazed ceramic), and an amazing exhibition of items recovered in 1975 from a shipwreck.

Entrance of the National Museum of Korea

Gold Crown and Girdle, National Treasure #191 and #192

Gold Crown Ornament, National Treasure #630

Ten Story Pagoda, National Treasure #86

Dragon shaped ewer celadon, National Treasure #61

Ewer celadon

Celadon plate

Objects from the Sinan shipwreck

Objects from the Sinan shipwreck

Coins from the Sinan shipwreck

Then it was off to lunch at a place in the city. There was about fifteen different courses!! It was pretty insane. And I was having fun until I was eating all the green vegetables in a cold "porridge" when I got a huge slice of raw green chili. My mouth exploded. I should have spat it out, but I was on a table full of strangers. So that was super painful (I was in tears) and kinda ruined the rest of the meal. And our tour guide didn't seem to understand that people need to use the bathroom, and so we had to try and find it ourselves when we should have been going out to get back on the coach.

Han Jeongsik traditional lunch at Jinjinbara

Han Jeongsik traditional lunch at Jinjinbara.  That green chili sunk in with the rest of the vegetables and my mouth exploded when I ate it :(

Han Jeongsik traditional lunch at Jinjinbara

After lunch it started raining. Yay. We went to Bukchon village next, a line of houses built in the 1930s by a dude who wanted to preserve houses built in traditional Korean style. But it's a residential street and I think the people that live there hate the fact that it's a huge tourist destination.

Sungnyemun Gate

Bukchon Hanok Village

Bukchon Hanok Village

Bukchon Hanok Village

Bukchon Hanok Village

Traditional dress store

Girls in traditional dress

Still raining. We drove past the presidential "blue house" and got one or two photos through foggy and rain-smeared windows.

The Blue House

Then into the royal palace next door. Still raining on and off. Had a decent wander around there which was pretty cool.

Gwanghwamun Gate

Heungnyemun Gate

Geunjeongjeon hall

Inside Geunjeongjeon hall

Courtyard of Geunjeongjeon hall and Bukhansan Mountain

Gargoyle at Geunjeongjeon hall

Covered walkway on west side of Geunjeongjeon hall

Covered walkway on west side of Geunjeongjeon hall

Gyeonghoeru pavilion

Bukhansan Mountain

Locals in traditional dress

Decorative roof at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Gangnyeongjeon hall

Inside Gangnyeongjeon hall

Locals in traditional dress

Looking towards Gwanghwamun Gate from Heungnyemun Gate

Gargoyle at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Asian women need instructions on how to use the toilets

Girls toilets at Gyeongbokgung Palace

So a reasonably decent tour. Shame about the weather.

Finally a very long drive back to the ship.

Banghwa Bridge

Queen Mary 2 docked at Incheon Port International Passenger Terminal

Queen Mary 2 docked at Incheon Port International Passenger Terminal

Incheon Bridge, connecting Yeongjong Island and the mainland of Incheon

Sunset aboard the Queen Mary 2

Queen Mary 2 bell

19:30 the usual pub for drinks/music/trivia (we got 16/20 this time - would have gotten a couple more if we'd joined with the table that marked ours - they knew two that we didn't heh). Really must join ranks with some English people as the questions do tend to be a bit British-centric.

When we got to dinner we found two new people on our table (Bruce and Maria from Sydney). They'd been on board since Sydney and were going all the way to Southampton. But they kept on being at a table by themselves and asked to join someone else. We'd had two seats free since Virginia and Bob got off in Shanghai so that was quite nice. Stu had chicken consomme, Korean chicken and chocolate volcano cake. I had smoked duck, penne, and wasn't going to have dessert because I was so full, but got tempted by the key lime pie heh.

I really feel like we don't belong on this cruise. Bruce and David spent most of the evening talking about travelling business class and comparing airlines, and the sizes of their apartments. Bruce and Maria live in one of the toasters in Circular Quay, and at one point I think I overheard it was 192 square metres (although only heard a snatch of that conversation I could be wrong). Various British couples we've met have summer homes in Europe. We're too young and not rich enough to belong on this cruise...

Woke up at 06:00. Blerf.

Got ready and downloaded photos, blogged etc. Had breakfast around 09:45.

After breakfast Stu started up some washing, and I did a wander all around deck 7, including the Princess and Queens Grill which are normally off limits to plebs like me, but they didn't mind me going in to take some photos while noone was in there.

Deck 7 promenade, starbooard side looking aft

Bow end of the deck 7 promenade

Spare propellers at bow of deck 7

The very front of the state rooms and public areas and bridge of the Queen Mary 2

Deck 7 promenade

Three laps around the ship on deck 7 is just over a mile long, two laps is just over a kilometre

Deck 7 aft

Deck 6 pool

Deck 7 promenade, starboard side

Inflatable life boats on deck 7

Deck chairs on deck 7, unfolded and with cushions

Looking aft at around deck 9 from the starboard side scenic lift

Princess Grill restaurant

Princess Grill restaurant

Princess Grill restaurant

Queens Grill restaurant

Queens Grill restaurant

Queens Grill restaurant

Queens Grill restaurant

Queens Grill restaurant

Came back to the room and we watched the port info on Shanghai while our washing dried.

Current position of the Queen Mary 2 on our stateroom tv

View forward from our balcony

We had lunch in the smaller aft Kings Court which doesn't have as much choice as the big one, but it did have pizza.

Took another walk around deck 7, this time with the sweetie.

Me with the spare propellors

The Grand Lobby

Flowers in the Grand Lobby

Me in the Grand Lobby

We also had a look at the games area. It's mostly people playing Mahjong, but also scrabble and rummy tiles. There's a corridor for games on both port and starboard sides. On one side there was a jigsaw nearing completion, while the table on the other side was empty.

Left there, and I tried to get an audio headset thingie for all the "Maritime Quest" info boards around the ship, but apparently they don't have them at the moment. ?? Something to do with them being out of date?? Some lame excuse anyway.

So I went back to the jigsaw and helped them finish it. Then around the other side someone had started a new jigsaw. So I helped with that until 16:45, so I could then join the sweetie to watch Passengers. It wasn't too bad, just a bit of Hollywood fluff really.

Illuminations Theatre

Illuminations Theatre showing the planetarium dome retracted

Back in the room afterwards I brought the GPS inside and download all its tracks since departing Hong Kong.

Then it was time to get ready. We headed to the pub again, this time in time for the pre-dinner trivia. We didn't officially play, but if we had we'd have gotten 18/20. There was one table that got 20 though, oh well. Collected some questions for our next trivia night. Not that I want to run another damned trivia night, but some people can't help themselves but win it!!

Then into dinner. Stu had the parsnip soup, guinea fowl and toffee pudding. I had prawn cocktail (very small serving), sole (not bad, my alternative choice after I found out the steak dianne was using minute steaks), and the toffee pudding.

And finally into bed.

I slept pretty well from 01:00 to 06:00. Then I woke up and saw that the GPS had stopped recording. So got up and hung it over the edge for like ten minutes trying to get a satellite but couldn't. In the end I left it tied up outside in the hopes that it would start again and tried to get more sleep. And failed (to get more sleep). Being hungry certainly didn't help. Eventually the GPS did start up again (it's now hooked up outside in a snaplock baggie), and I checked that the breakfast buffet was open til 11:00, so dozed for a bit.

At about 09:30, after I'd gotten ready, I went down to ConneXions to pick up a ticket for the day's planetarium show. There was three different desks on either side and in the middle labelled as ConneXions, but noone around. In the end I asked a passing crew member. Turns out the middle desk has a plastic stand filled with tickets, and you just go and take them for the time slot you'd prefer. Simple, once you know how.

Once Stu was ready, we headed up to Kings Court for breakfast. Again, another huge buffet with all sorts of tempting things, but I was pretty restrained.

Breakfast at Kings Court

After breakfast (it was 11:00 by now) we went to see the Port Lecturer, Graham Howell, talk about Nagasaki and the tours the ship does there. They'd already done talks on Shanghai and Busan before we boarded, but they're recorded and you can watch them later on the room tv.

Queen Mary 2 life ring on deck 7

Deck 7 promenade

Deck 7 promenade

After we were back at our room they had the 12:00 update. But they don't play it in the rooms, just some of the public spaces. We tried to find the channel they were showing it on, but the tv is a bit dumb and doesn't let you just scroll through the channels. And the guide for what each channel is only appears after you go to the channel, and then it's lost again if you scroll round the end. Don't know if there's a printed guide anywhere, might have to make one myself. We never did find the announcement channel, but found a few that *might* have had it, if we'd found it in time.

Stu on our balcony

At around 13:30 we headed up to Kings Court for lunch. It was going to be a fairly small lunch until I tasted some of Stu's Spanish pork dish and went and got a little dish for myself heh.

At 14:30 we went to the day's planetarium show - Search for Life, narrated by Harrison Ford. A planetarium at sea is certainly a novelty!

Stu outside the Illuminations Theatre

Illuminations Theatre showing the planetarium dome in place

After the show we headed up the library on deck 8 forward to have a look. We got the impression that the half dozen seats facing forward out the windows get filled very quickly and stay filled all day. I was quite amused by all the books on the Titanic :)

Stu in the Queen Mary 2 library on deck 8

Books on the Titanic in the Queen Mary 2 library

Came back to the room and watched Graham Howell's talk on Busan.

Then we had a snooze. Because we were tired.

View of the South China Sea from our balcony

When I woke up I made up a little tv guide. And we watched a documentary on the construction of the ship.

Then we got ready for dinner - the first of the "formal" nights, where I wore my $8 Vinnies dress, yayy Vinnies! We went and had a drink first in the Golden Lion pub ($15USD for two pints of beer - pretty good value actually!).

Dinner was lovely again. Stu had an empanada, sea bass, and souffle, and I had mushroom consomme, beef bourguignon, and strawberry and frangelico parfait. Licia tried to talk us into going to the Beatles show, but we just wanted to go to bed. Note to self: don't take uncomfortable shoes off during dinner - it just makes them a lot more uncomfortable trying to stuff them back in again at the end of dinner...

Deck 5 corridor